knows. It is not to
his far-reaching eye but to his more extensive knowledge that the pilot
looks for certitude; for this certitude of the ship's position on
which may depend a man's good fame and the peace of his conscience, the
justification of the trust deposited in his hands, with his own life
too, which is seldom wholly his to throw away, and the humble lives of
others rooted in distant affections, perhaps, and made as weighty as
the lives of kings by the burden of the awaiting mystery. The pilot's
knowledge brings relief and certitude to the commander of a ship; the
Serang, however, in his fanciful suggestion of a pilot-fish attending a
whale, could not in any way be credited with a superior knowledge. Why
should he have it? These two men had come on that run together--the
white and the brown--on the same day: and of course a white man would
learn more in a week than the best native would in a month. He was
made to stick to the skipper as though he were of some use--as the
pilot-fish, they say, is to the whale. But how--it was very marked--how?
A pilot-fish--a pilot--a . . . But if not superior knowledge then . . .

Sterne's discovery was made. It was repugnant to his imagination,
shocking to his ideas of honesty, shocking to his conception of mankind.
This enormity affected one's outlook on what was possible in this world:
it was as if for instance the sun had turned blue, throwing a new and
sinister light on men and nature. Really in the first moment he had felt
sickish, as though he had got a blow below the belt: for a second the
very color of the sea seemed changed--appeared queer to his wandering
eye; and he had a passing, unsteady sensation in all his limbs as though
the earth had started turning the other way.

A very natural incredulity succeeding this sense of upheaval brought a
measure of relief. He had gasped; it was over. But afterwards during all
that day sudden paroxysms of wonder would come over him in the midst
of his occupations. He would stop and shake his head. The revolt of
his incredulity had passed away almost as quick as the first emotion
of discovery, and for the next twenty-four hours he had no sleep. That
would never do. At meal-times (he took the foot of the table set up
for the white men on the bridge) he could not help losing himself in
a fascinated contemplation of Captain Whalley opposite. He watched the
deliberate upward movements of the arm; the old man put his food to his
lips a